


The Rise of the All-Daughter

by AnyGivenGame01 (conceptstage)



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 18:32:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11857248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptstage/pseuds/AnyGivenGame01
Summary: What would Aloy be like if the Matriarchs had listened to Teersa and taken Aloy back shortly after leaving her with Rost? As it turned out, pretty much the same. Stubborn, sarcastic, and ready to kick ass.





	The Rise of the All-Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> She's a little bit older in this story than she is in the prologue of the game. I'd say eight or nine. Let me know if you come across any mistakes and I'll fix them. I wrote this in a day and I'm not the best proofreader to begin with. I'm thinking about adding more to this. Most of Aloy's story will be the same so I may just do a series of one-shots about this length with some of the important bits.

Aloy giggled as she peeked out of the tall grass at the children gathering berries. She had never seen any of them before. Maybe none of them had seen her before either. Maybe they would treat her like she were normal.

She gathered a handful of berries and made her way over to a blond boy with blue eyes and markings and a woven basket. He eyed her as she got close but let her put her berries in with the others.

"Who are you?" he asked as other children gathered around. "I've never seen you before."

"I'm new here," she said, rocking back on her heels and smiling broadly. "I just moved from Mother's Crown." In truth, she had never been to Mother's Crown, or any of the other villages either. Technically she wasn't permitted to leave the Sacred Mountain except for holidays where she would 'bless' the humble villagers with her presence for a few minutes before being ushered back inside.

The blond boy smiled back at her. "Oh, I see. Well, it's nice to meet you. I'm Bost. What's your name?"

"I'm Vala!" A girl said excitedly from beside the boy. "You have the same hair color as the All-Daughter. It's pretty."

There was a gasp from behind them and when she spun around she saw a mother staring at her with wide eyes. "All-Daughter," she whispered, falling to her knees and letting her basket spill over. "I am humbled by your presence, but should you not be in the Sacred Mountain?"

Bost frowned at her then, then slowly got to his knees. "You didn't tell me you were _her_."

"No, no, I'm not," she said hurriedly, backing away from the mother. "I'm not her, my name is Aloy. I'm just a normal girl."

"I should get the Matriarchs at once. They'll be wondering where you are."

"No!" Aloy screamed, turning on her heel and running into the trees. "No, no, I won't go back! Don't make me go back, please!" She stumbled over roots and fallen branches and then tumbled headlong into a deep hole.

Her heart stopped in her chest and each breath felt like it took an hour until her back and head smacked against the rock. Her vision faded, going in and out like a distance lantern, until she was able to sit up.

"All-Daughter!" Called several voices from up above. "All-Daughter!"

Her head pounded but she had to get away. She looked around the cavern she'd found herself in and pushed herself shakily to her feet. With measured breaths and careful steps she climbed the rocks and followed the only path she could see.

The rocks gave way to a metal door and she gasped.

"The metal world," she mumbled as she squeezed through the crack in the door. "This is just like the Sacred Mountain." She walked down the stairs and the cavern widened into a room with chairs and tables and stalactites (mites? She had never really cared to learn the difference) taller than she was. Farther into the room was another door, ajar with enough space for her to slip through. The next room was over grown with grass as she made her way farther in.

There was a mass in the center, illuminated by light like a message from All-Mother herself. As she got closer, she recognized what it was and gasped.

"A dead body." She walked around it. Not a message from the goddess, then? Just a random stream of light. Until… "What's that sparkling?" She got closer, reaching forward for the small white triangle sitting on the body's temple. She hesitated, pulling her hand back slightly, before snatching it off as fast as she could and scrambling away.

She turned it around in her hands, holding it up and then down and ten waving it around. She paused, then held it up at her temple. It jumped from her fingers like it was alive and snapped onto the side of her head. Lights appears around her, screens of machines long dead illuminated purple and blue. She squealed and tore it from her head, dropping it on the ground and then looking around again. The lights were gone. Had that device allowed her to see things others could not?

"It is a gift from All-Mother," she said in wonder as she picked it back up and put it back on her head. The lights were back and she smiled, thrilled. "Look at all the lights." There were lights in the next room so she followed it. The darkness lit up purple and blue and she followed every one to the source, reaching out and reading the words that appeared. "Com-pu-ter…" she mumbled. "This is a computer! What does it do?" The words 'No Power!' flashed red in her face and she pouted but moved on. As she neared another dead body where was a symbol hovering over a device in its hand and she stared at it for a moment while her device scanned it.

There was a flicker, then the image of a man appeared.

He had kind eyes and a loving smile. "Happy birthday, Isaac. I love you."

"Happy birthday…" she mumbled, frowning.

Her birthday was a tribe-wide holiday. The villagers feasted and danced in her honor and she could only watch from a platform above. Some of the wealthier villagers would come and leave gifts at her feet. She gave them her best diplomatic smile and nodded. She wasn't allowed to speak to them. As the Prophet, her words were for the Matriarch's ears only. She never got to see what any of the gifts were. Would she like them? Did the villagers know anything about her? Did anyone know enough about her to give her something she would enjoy? It didn't matter, she supposed. The gifts in their fine wrappings were swept away by the Matriarchs and then donated to local children in her name, which was fine. Great even. If she couldn't enjoy them at least they weren't wasting away on a shelf somewhere. At least someone might see them and feel like they were loved.

She glared at the vision of the man but her glare fell to a sad frown. "Show me again," she said quietly. "Just the last part."

"I love you," the man said. It went to static then repeated. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

He wasn't looking right at her but if she stood on her tippy toes she could almost pretend he say saying it to her. She waved the vision away and moved on through the cavern. She found many of the symbols and sat and listened to every voice. There were some that talked about people they loved. She liked those ones the best. Some people talked about places they wanted to see. Places she had never heard of but that sounded amazing.

There was one man, hidden away in a back room, who was angry and ranting. His recording ended with a loud bang, like something falling off a high shelf. She didn't like that one at all.

She found herself back where she had fallen, but there was a ledge that she could climb up to the surface.

"Aloy?" called a deep voice that she didn't recognize. "Aloy, are you down there?"

She froze. No one called her that. No one but Teersa, and only in private. As far as any villagers knew, her name was just All-Daughter. She crept towards the voice. It was dark out now and the man who had called her was shrouded in darkness.

"Hello?" she called.

"Please forgive me for speaking to you," he said softly. "Everyone is looking for you."

"How do you know my name? Who are you?"

"My name is Rost. You don't remember me, and it's best that it stay that way. I've come to take you back to the village."

She shrunk away from his hand and stepped back out of the light of the moon. "No. I'm never going back there."

"Don't be so selfish, Aloy."

She gasped. No one had ever spoken to her that way. It was… refreshing. And infuriating. "Selfish? How am I selfish? I just don't want to be around those people anymore. I just want to be normal! Why can't I be like them?" There were tears in her eyes now but she wiped them away quickly.

"Aloy, you mean so much to the tribe. Everyone is out looking for you. They care about you so much. Don't do this to them."

"They don't even know me."

"They know that you were a gift from All-Mother, and that you have a destiny. They love you, Aloy."

She sniffled and climbed the ramp, taking the man's hand when he offered it to her.

"They don't love me," she whispered to him as he lead her back to the village. He didn't speak to her now. She didn't mind so much that he wouldn't speak. Her hand in his was the most physical contact she'd had in months. The last time she remembered touching someone was almost a year ago when she had stumbled over a rock and crashed into High Matriarch Jezza's leg. Jezza had fallen to her knees and asked her for forgiveness. She had long given up telling people that she didn't mind being touched (in fact sometimes she found that she was starved for it) and just accepted Jezza's apologies gracefully.

The woods were quiet as he walked her back. The crickets had stopped. He seemed to notice it the same time she had because he stopped her and dropped her hand. "Go for that tree," he said quietly and drew his bow. She looked over at the tree and was planning her path up as she crept over as quietly but quickly as she dared. She was almost to the tree, when she heard a wiring noise and froze.

Nothing happened for several heartbeats and she reached up to her ear and turned on her triangle. She turned quickly around in a circle and she could see them all. There were three and they were closing in.

"Rost," she called. "There are three…. there's one to the left, one in front of you and one to the right."

"How can you… Get up in that tree Aloy!"

The wiring noise came again and a metal monster leapt from the trees. Rost turned towards the noise but they weren't giving off any light so he couldn't see them.

Aloy could see them. She could help.

"Rost, it's a trick! The one behind you is about jump… Now!"

He ducked and rolled out of the way, shooting an arrow at where he had just been. The purple light of that monster disappeared. "Now both of them are coming for you together from the front." There was another wiring noise and one of the monsters reared up as the other kept moving. "Rost, run!"

Rost turned and ran for her. He scooped her up then and scaled the tree like a monkey just as the forest erupted in light. She hid her face in Rost's shoulder and was able to avoid most of it and Rost's back was to it so he seemed fine.

"Keep close," he said as he sat her down on the wood platform and ran across the yellow ropes to another platform. "I dropped a blast trap, we don't want to be nearby when it goes off."

She hurriedly followed him across the ropes, but wobbled and lost her balance and wasn't able to keep up.

The blast trap went off and the platform she had just left exploded. The rope under her feet went slack and she held it as tightly in her arms as she could manage. She screamed as she slid several feet down the rope and her arms and hands started to burn but she held on. When she looked down she could see the last monster and it was staring right at her.

"Where is it Aloy," Rost asked from the platform above.

"Right below me."

"I can't shoot at it Aloy, I might hit you. You need to climb up."

"I can't. My arms hurt so much and I think they're bleeding. If I let go with one hand I don't think my other hand can hold me." Rost took a deep breath, she could barely hear it over the roar in her ears. "Just shoot it," she said, holding out her foot so that it was right over the monster's eye in Rost's line of sight. "See my foot?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Aim at my foot. On the count of three, I'm going to yank it back and you're going to shoot right where it was. One." She heard him pull back the string of his bow. "Two." The monster below didn't move, just watched her. "Three." She yanked her foot back against her body just as an arrow shot passed her and embedded in the eye of the monster. The purple light faded as if fell to the ground. She looked around but there were no more. "It's safe now."

Rost climbed down the tree and came to stand below her. "These are the wilds. It's never safe. Drop down into my arms."

"Well, not safe maybe, but monster-free at least." She grunted as she landed in his arms and hissed, pain flaring up in her arms and hands.

Rost peered closely and sucked a breath in through his teeth. "Yeah, that looks bad. May be the worst case of rope burn I've seen in a while. You must have really weak skin. Come on, time to get you back to the village." He sat her on her feet and she gaped at him.

"Weak skin?! I do not have weak skin," she let that drop in favor of asking, "Could you teach me to use a bow? I want to be able to defend the village like you Braves do. Maybe someday, I could be a Brave."

"You're the All-Daughter. Your role in the tribe is much greater than any Brave. And I'm not. A Brave that is."

She frowned. "If you won't teach me, I'll find someone else who will." She hissed and cradled her arms to her chest. "Once these heal, that is."

"It's not that I don't want to the teach you, Aloy. After what you did today, I think you would make an excellent Brave. One of the best, had things been different." He paused and spun around to her. "Speaking of, how did you do that? I could barely see two feet beyond my own nose and you were calling out enemy movements like you had night vision."

"I found this device in the ruins. People and monsters light up purple."

"Aloy, such things are forbidden, you should know that better than anyone. Give it here."

She slapped her hand over the triangle and stumbled away. "No. It's mine."

There was a short standoff, but finally Rost sighed and conceded. "Just don't let the Matriarchs see it. They'll take it from you and Lansra will blame me."

They walked again in silence for several minutes befroe Aloy spoke up again. "So if you want to teach me, but can't, why can't you?"

"I'm not even supposed to be talking to you, Aloy. I'm an Outcast, but I heard someone say that you had gone missing around here and I remembered sticking my whole leg through that hole a few weeks ago. A smaller person might fall all the way in."

"An Outcast? What for?"

"I'd rather not talk about it, Aloy," he said, just as the lights from village became visible over the crest of the hill. He breathed out deeply through his nose. "Mother's Heart," he said fondly.

Aloy frowned. "I don't like it there. Nobody talks to me like you do. The villagers don't talk to me at all and the Matriarchs are always going on my destiny and responsibilities. Sometimes I just want people to… to talk to me like they care about what I have to say."

"Aloy…"

"And no one touches me either. Not without begging my forgiveness. When you held my hand earlier that was the first time someone had touched me on purpose for as long as I can remember. I know that the Mountain is my mother, but when I try to hug the mountain it's cold and doesn't hug back." Rost was quiet but took her hand again and lead her to the city gates. "My hands all bloody," she mumbled. Part of her hoped he wouldn't hear her so that he wouldn't let go.

"It's okay," he said.

They walked towards the gates of the village and when the first guard came into view Rost stopped. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Rost let go of her hand and she flexed it, suddenly feeling cold, but he knelt down in front of her so that his eyes were level with hers. "This is as far as I go, Aloy. They won't let me in the village."

"But you saved me. If I talk to the Matriarchs maybe I can get them to lift your sentence."

He smiled at her indulgently and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "They won't, and that's okay. I don't want them to. I'm Outcast because I deserve it Aloy."

"But Outcasts are bad people. You're not a bad person."

He sighed and shook his head. "It's not that simple. There's no such thing as good people and bad people. Every person is capable of both. It's our choices that matter. I'm an Outcast because of my choices."

She frowned. "If it's our choices that define us, what kind of person am I going to be if no one ever lets me make any?"

He stared at her, shell-shocked. "Well, um…"

"All-Daughter!" called a voice up by the gates. "Oh, thank the Goddess!"

Rost sighed and looked back at her. "You will do amazing things, Aloy. Never doubt that." He nodded, looking her in the eyes. No one ever looked her in the eyes. She was shocked when he hugged her but instantly hugged him back. He squeezed her and then let her go and she nearly wept at the loss.

As the person who'd called from the gates go close enough to see him, he turned and walked away without another word to her. She watched him go, ignoring the twittering of the matriarchs behind her as they ushered her inside. They gasped and fussed over her wounds but no one touched her, and back in her cold stone room in the Mountain she treated and dressed her own wound with the guidance of the Healer, but the Healer never touched her and the matriarchs who fused around her for hours never touched her, and that night she cried herself to sleep.

 

A week later found Rost carving a new bow on his porch. It was too small for him to use and he lied to himself about who he was making for. She'd never use it. Most likely, he'd never see her again at all.

There was movement over by the gates of his little homestead and he stood, pulling his spear up off the ground, then dropping it again when he saw who was there.

It was Aloy, followed by a matriarch he couldn’t name and three Braves armed to the teeth. He stared at her as she held up a hand for them to wait at the gate and continued walking towards him.

"Aloy," he whispered so that the Braves couldn't hear him speaking to her. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm making a choice." She looked at the little child sized bow and smiled. "I convinced the High-Matriarchs that if my destiny was to protect the tribe from the return of the Metal Devil, as they predicted, I should know how to fight. And I would need to know the machines in a way that no Tribe Brave or Hunter could teach me. I would need to know them like an Outcast. If you agree to it, I'll come over every day to train with you. I'll be here from sun up until after sun down and you're allowed to speak to me without being punished. That part was hard to swing, but I asked 'How is he going to teach me if he can't talk to me' and after a while they seemed to realize they were being foolish."

"Aloy, you're the one being foolish. You have a hundred Braves and Hunters in the tribe who could teach you just as well as I could."

"But they'd never reprimand me. If I did something wrong they wouldn't stop me and make me correct it and then I'd never get it right. They'd coddle me. I don't want to be coddled. I want to be strong."

He stared at her sternly and she stared stubbornly right back. He sighed after several seconds, the tension in his shoulders sagging, and nodded. "I'll teach you. Grab your bow. Your first lesson starts now."

She grinned and ran to pick up the bow he'd just finished. She ran her hands over it in wonder and turned it around to look at every side of it. Then she turned to him and gave him a smile so bright it could melt ice. "Then let's begin."


End file.
